Wednesday, November 7, 2012

There was plenty of good
news in last night’s election in terms of education initiatives, despite
huge spending by the SuperPacs, billionaires and astroturf groups to push pro-privatization, free market corporate reform. Though pro-charter
school initiatives in Georgia and
Washington won, while outspending the opposition by millions
of dollars, the Gates-supported proposition in Washington prevailed by only a razor thin margin.

In
California, Proposition 30 was victorious, which will prevent huge budget cuts
to the state’s already underfunded schools.Also Proposition 32 lost, which would have prohibit unions from making
political contributions, leaving the field for the plutocrats to further wreck our economy and privatize our public
schools.

Indiana
State Superintendent Tony Bennett, an aggressively pro-voucher,
anti-teacher education chief, and according to Diane Ravitch, “the
face of right wing reform in America”
was defeated by teacher Glenda Ritz, despite outspending her by more than $1 million. As the
Fort
Wayne Journal Gazette reported, “His campaign chest of about $1.5 million
included contributions from billionaires and hedge-fund managers far from
Indiana” including, according to the Huffington Post, an undetermined amount of Bloomberg
SuperPAC cash .

In
Idaho, all three Propositions 1,
2, and 3, also known as the “Luna laws” after their right-wing State
Superintendent Tom Luna, lost
big.These laws would have weakened
teacher tenure and collective bargaining rights, would have imposed merit pay,
and would have radically expanded online learning, authorizing the
state to spend $180M to lease laptops for students. Bloomberg contributed
$200,000 to a secret fund to the campaign to defend these laws.

Closer
to home, the GOP
seems to have lost its majority in the NY State Senate -- despite receiving a cool $1 million from Bloomberg in September, thought to be the largest single donation
ever given to a state party. If a
Democratic majority holds, this bodes well for parents, teachers and education advocates who would like the state Legislation to approve more
progressive education policies -- including the possibility of providing checks
and balances to our
own extremely unpopular and coercive system of mayoral control, which unlike the
citizens of Bridgeport, we never got to vote on.

Contact key education policymakers

Contact Board of Regents members' emails below.Click here to find your StateSenator; here for your AssemblymemberClick here to find your City Council member; click here to see contact information for Council members on Education CommitteeFor all your elected reps, click hereSpeaker Carl Heastie